Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of Second Lieutenant (2nd Lt) Harold Boyd Wanliss, 29th Battalion. A grazier from East St Kilda, Victoria prior to enlistment, Lt Wanliss embarked with the 2nd Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Demosthenes on 29 October 1915. Later transferring to the 14th Battalion, he was promoted to Lieutenant and wounded in action and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) “For conspicuous gallantry and determination when leading an attacking party during a raid on a German trench in France.” While recovering in England he was promoted to Captain. On rejoining his unit he was Mentioned in Despatches and, on 26th September 1917, aged 25, he was killed in action at Polygon Wood and buried where he fell. Following the Armistice, his remains could not be recovered and he is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Belgium. His father, Newton Wanliss later wrote a history of the 14th Battalion titled “The History of the 14th Battalion AIF”. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had the concession to take photographs at the Broadmeadows and Seymour army camps during the First World War. In the 1930s, the Australian War Memorial purchased the original glass negatives from Algernon Darge, along with the photographers' notebooks. The notebooks contain brief details, usually a surname or unit name, for each negative. See also H16942.